Keep Breathing
by Kloklo
Summary: Keep Breathing. It's the only advice he needs, the only warning you need! What could possibly happen in 3 days? When you are a father a lot. A father and a superhero in love, a lot more. Set 8 months after SR. 9th chapter and Epilogue up!
1. Happy Birthday

A/N: I would like to thank my editors,SHADO and Misha...thank you so much...

Daily Planet , Friday , 18:23 PM

Eight months had passed. Eight lonely months, but as far as he knew those months were the happiest of his adult life. He had a son. Granted, a son that he saw only at nights, but still he was his. Sometimes, Lois brought him to the office after school… then he had the chance to become a friend to his child, to hear him, to play with him without drawing too much attention as Clark Invisible Kent.

Today he was invisible as well, and all he could do was to just watch. He was sitting in Lois's office, staring through the glass of his new office. Well, maybe "new" was a little bit of a stretch… it wasn't really _new_, it had been almost four months or so since the day that Perry had announced Richard's promotion, that had led him finally to NY. Clark remembered when Perry had told him that he was going to take Richard's chair at _The Planet_. The news hadn't been taken so warmly by everyone but, a year afterwards, they were pleased with Perry's choice. Oddly enough, Clark Kent had a similar character with their last assistant editor. Who could have predicted that years ago?

So, here he was, staring at some of his co-workers that had stayed after the end of the day at _The Planet_, singing _Happy Birthday_ to his son inside his office. Richard had come all the way from NY to be at Jason's birthday party at The Planet. Lois had asked Clark if they could use his office and he had gladly agreed. Yet he hadn't had the courage to join them. He always had to stay in the corner…_But tomorrow_… _tomorrow all is going to change,_ he thought…He was going to reveal himself to her tonight… But first he had to speak to his father….After six years since he had left for Krypton, and months afterwards of searching for the Fortress' crystals…he was going to speak again with his father…

* * *

Lois was cutting her son's birthday cake now. It was the first time that Jason could taste his own cake. For the past five years he had been allergic to almost everything, but that had changed eight months ago. She didn't want to remember that day, but every night the images and the horror were coming back. After Richard's promotion her life had changed dramatically as everything in the office, but they didn't know the whole story. No one really knew why Richard had left, why he had accepted a job away from his perfect family. _A family that didn't belong to him,_ Lois thought bitterly as she shook her head and tried not to remember painful thoughts, especially not on her son's birthday party. All her hopes, all her expectations from the man she loved had never come true.

"It's time to unwrap the presents, kiddo," she heard Richard talking to Jason. She knew that he was in a hurry to catch the last plane tonight. It was only natural, really, after she had revealed to him that Jason's father was the man she had always loved. Richard had –understandably - preferred to keep his distance between them.

Jason was too busy with his second large piece of cake that his mother had given him to notice anything else. He seemed happier than she had ever seen him before. He still couldn't believe that he was able to eat whatever he liked and that he had stopped his medical treatments and, of course, he didn't need to use his inhaler anymore.

"Well, let's see what we have here," she said, knowing that most of her co-workers wanted to see Richard's son happy after his parents' break-up. The irony was that they were not just co-workers, but they all were Richard's friends. She had never made a friend inside the_ Daily Planet_…except for Clark. Her Kansas boy. He was the only one that she could really call "friend" in there. And then there was Jimmy. But Clark had something that made her trust him. He had that puppy-eye look full of honesty that she had never seen before… The only exception being…_HIM_.

"Mommy look! Look what daddy gave me!" Jason yelled with his enthusiastic voice, filling the office as he was trying his new bike.

"Oh that's a really nice present, honey," Lois said to her son as she looked over him to meet Richard's eyes, who quickly turned his look away, effectively avoiding eye contact with her.

She should have expected that after all. _The_ _wounds are not easily healed, _she reminded herself as her own wounds were still bleeding. Richard hadn't come to see her for weeks. He had been coming only for Jason when he was already asleep, but he never talked to him. He never woke him up. _Never_. Lost in her thoughts, she was hearing her child's laugh every time he opened a new present. There were still two left unopened, and one of them was almost hidden behind a shad paper.

The first was from Clark, and the little boy took it from her hands after she told him who the present was from. It was nothing special though, just a black pair of pajamas, that Jason quickly started to wear upon his clothes before she could make a move to stop him. _Couldn't Clark find something colorful?_ She asked herself as she noticed that at least he had picked the right size. Suddenly, they all looked at her son, amused, and Richard's jaw dropped open a little as he looked at Jason's chest. The pajamas weren't totally black. In front of his chest, Jason was proudly showing a big silver "S" shield. Superman's shield.

"That's enough Jason, take it off right now!" she all but screamed, leaving her audience shocked.

"Your mother is right, kiddo. Take it off," Richard said as he tried to move and help the boy take off the pajamas.

Lois felt awful. It wasn't Jason's fault and she knew it well. But she was afraid. Afraid that people could see the similar blue eyes that he and his father shared. Heck, even the reason why Richard and she had taken different ways in their lives… She felt as if suddenly the hidden truths of her life had started to become like the silent moments of a clock: Too many. Unfortunately, they were a necessity to have a safe future for her son.

* * *

Jason had tears in his eyes now, and Lois tried to calm him down as she was telling the others –lying, really- about the possibility that the dust in the cloths could cause him an asthma attack, or worse, to bring his allergies back. Most of her audience bought it, she thankfully thought.

"Here's your last present, Honey, open it," said Lois, trying to make her voice as pleasant as possible.

Jason heard his mother's calm voice and his face lighted up with a smile, a weak one, but it was a smile nonetheless, she guiltily told herself as she thought of her former reaction.

Jason didn't know why his mother had been mad at him before. It was only a pair of pajamas, _and_ Superman himself had sent them. His mommy liked Superman, not as much as when he was in the office but he liked him all right. He was so happy that his favorite superhero had given him a birthday present! Not to mention that he was visited by said superhero every night when he thought that he was sleeping.

He remembered the second night that he had come to his bedroom. He didn't recall much from the first night, only his touch and his last words. Words that didn't make sense to him, but still, he had talked to him. The best part though, was that by the second night they already had a secret, just as if they were best friends. He couldn't tell to anyone, not even to his Mommy, but still they shared a secret: Clark was Superman.

His mother's voice took him out of his thoughts as she was giving him his last present. He took it with a weak smile.

The gift that his mother had given him was a strange metallic box, which made Jason feel –and look- disappointed. But then he thought that it might hide his real present inside so he opened it without a second thought.

He heard a noise and then a small cloud of dust hit him in his face. His eyes started to burn like his lungs with the first breath he took. He started coughing, and then everything stopped. He couldn't breathe or even cough. He was choking, and the screams of his mother hurt his ears. The last thing he knew before all turned black around him was a door smashing and glasses falling to the floor.

* * *

She was screaming.

Lois was screaming and someone was coughing now, choking. Jason. Oh, no, no, that couldn't be. Without thinking anything else, he ran to his office and smashed the door as he was trying to open it. The glass was falling all around him and the faces of the scared reporters didn't affect him when he saw his son lying on the floor. He had fainted and he wasn't breathing.

He pushed Richard to the corner and took the boy from Lois's arms, which were unwilling to let him go, but he was stronger than she thought. He took him in his arms as he felt a weakness. The green dust on his son's face, his choking, and now the weakness he felt had only one answer: Kryptonite. As he saw the box that was now on the floor, he noticed there was a card with only one sentence written:

I'm back.

L.L.

He lifted the child in his arms and he moved out of the office.

"CLAAAAARK! Where are you taking him?!" he heard Lois screaming, but he just ignored her, just like Richard who made a move to take his son from his arms. He pushed him harder this time and he went through the broken glass.

Quickly, he got into the bathroom and opened the water. He washed Jason's face in a hurry, with Lois looking at him like she never had before: With fear. When he was sure that the face was cleaned up, he started giving him CPR. Every time he gave him a breath his mouth burned because of the Kryptonite dust in Jason's mouth. His agony grew more and more as the boy didn't breathe yet, until Jason started coughing in his embrace.

"Breathe with me, Jason. Breathe with me, son," he heard himself saying as his son's tears were wetting his shirt. When Jason's breathing started to come in a normal level, Lois tried to take him from his hands but he didn't give him to her.

"What are you doing? Give me my son. Give him to me!" Lois started screaming again, but he didn't give her their son.

"Jason, spit it all out. Spit it." Jason started spitting in the sink, and Clark opened the water again and washed his and Jason's mouth. Lois was still trying to take the boy from his arms, but Clark didn't let him go, nor did Jason want to let go either. He had clung to Clark with all the strength that the little boy still had left in him.

"He had to spit it out, Lois!" Clark finally yelled back at her, for the first time in his life.

* * *

She looked at him frightened. He wasn't the Clark she had known all those years. He wasn't the shy, easygoing Clark, and he definitely wasn't the mild-mannered and tolerant person that all the office had known until now. _Only the sun can help him now_, Clark whispered only for his own ears. "We… we… must take him to…errr.. the roof…I…I think that sunlight will make him feel better…I am sorry… about before. I am… sorry…" he said apologetically and right then the old Clark came back.

"Come here, Baby," Lois said to Jason. And so, for the first time since the whole thing had started, Clark didn't ignore her. As he was ready to give her Jason back into her arms, her boy didn't quite have the same opinion.

"Noooo! Leave me! I want Clark!" Jason said as he squeezed Clark's hand with all his remaining powers, and he started to cry on his chest.

Clark didn't make any move. He just caressed Jason's hair, telling him that everything was okay now. Richard was staring from the door of the bathroom. With his right hand he was trying to stop the bleeding from his left hand, which had been cut with the broken glass that had flown away when Clark had pushed him. In the end, they were all looking at Clark, in part not being able to believe that he had been the one who had acted to save the boy, but mostly because of the way he had done it.

_Sunlight. His father takes his powers from the sun. It's the only thing that will help him right now, and Clark knows it_. Lois knew that Clark wasn't a fool, but she wasn't sure if he was able to see so far as to realize Jason's true paternity. _Of course not, he was too_….what?… _too Clark, Lois… too Clark…_ she told herself.

"I think that now he needs fresh air. Shall we, Clark?"

Clark nodded to Lois and he murmured a sorry to Richard who still couldn't believe how Clark had pushed him with so much strength. Neither had she ever thought that her puppy-eyed former partner was caring so much for her son that he had lost his temper for the first time –ever— to save him. And now she was realizing that if he hadn't been there, she could have lost Jason, and his father hadn't come despite of her callings. Was he really so busy that he couldn't find the time to help his own son?

She and Clark got in the elevator and for the first time she noticed Clark's eyes. It wasn't that they were blue, or light blue, or however that shade was called, that made them beautiful. No, it was what she saw reflected in his eyes, the fact that they were only looking at Jason. It was love mixed with concern and relief, but the feeling that she couldn't understand was the one that was taking over: Anger.

The sun was still up but not for long as they had only one hour before dusk. She unbuttoned Jason's shirt as he was still in Clark's arms, and she took it over, leaving him shirtless. Months ago she would have been crazy to attempt to do such a thing. It had been only when he had turned into a perfectly healthy boy when he had started to have high temperatures. His temperature had always been a little higher that usual, but now he was becoming more and more like his father. A father that she knew cared for him but that hadn't come when Jason had truly needed him the most.

"Lois," Clark asked her in a slow, low voice, "What are you thinking? You seem…eh ….a little distract…than usual… you know…"

Lois saw her bare-chest son lying in his arms and she thought that Superman should have been the one who had saved him; the one to carry him tearfully; the one with the love and affection in his eyes for his son…She just smiled, and finally took her now sleeping son into her arms. It wasn't much for what he had done, but he seemed to think that her smile was the best reward and he smiled too, differently from the clumsy, goofy Clark that she had known for so long, but still familiar.


	2. Adultery

Fortress of Solitude, Friday, 20:49

He had spent months to find them. The search had almost been like his trip to Krypton years ago, hopeful and tiring, but the result had been different. He had found four of the eight crystals, and with the help of the green crystal that his father had given him minutes before he sent him to Earth, he had regained the lost ones.

He put the crystals into their holes and the platform started to glow. His eyes looked straight at the crystal wall in front of him, and the face he hadn't seen for years was there once again. The emotions he felt were the same as when he had seen Lois in the airplane, or similar to when he had seen Jason for the first time with the knowledge that he was his son, a part of him. A part of the person he had loved more than his own life, but that he had abandoned to find something she had already been carrying then: The proof he wasn't alone. A home. A family. Someone that wasn't different from him… that negated the fact that he was the last, an outcast to this universe. His son.

"Kal-El. You do not remember me."

"Father," he said, not wanting to wait for the answers he needed. "Father, I went to Krypton. The place was a graveyard."

"You didn't find survivors, it was expected you wouldn't. Why have you done that? You already knew."

"I hoped… to find a home, someone like me. When you sent me to Earth you knew that I would probably be the last, yet you didn't want me to create a family with my powers. Why?"

"Even if you are raised as a human, Kal-El, you are not one of them. You never will be, but because of your upbringing, you have human reactions. Some of those reactions are forced by feelings. Feelings that could be harmful not only for yourself, but for the people you live with. It was a way to protect you and the planet that gave you the chance to survive."

He had guessed that answer when he had seen Richard White for the first time. If he hadn't been raised as a kind farm boy from Kansas by the Kents, the man would had been in a hospital minutes after their first handshake.

"What about the possibility of child?" he eagerly asked. "I can handle my emotions, but I want to know what your answer is about the existence of a child that will continue the House of El."

"I was hoping you would never ask me that, my son. Your question sure has a reason. You want a child, Kal-El, or has the child already been created?"

"I have a child, a boy, five years old. He already has my gifts although he is half-human. What must I expect from you now?"

The face of his father froze for a moment and it became smaller as other heads appeared in the crystal screen. Clark wasn't ready for this. Thirty Kryptonians were looking at him with not friendly look.

"The birth of a child from two different kinds is not common my son," Jor-El said. "We will accept him as a Kryptonian citizen but you must officially recognize him in front of us first. That bring us and to another issue, though. You committed adultery against your birth-mate, against your wife."

"Wife? I have a wife?" Clark asked, heavily unwilling to believe it. There were survivors besides him, to begin with.

"Your birth mate and you were married as infants. In Krypton, noble generations had to keep their purity, so they married their children and they guided them to accept and love their mate as they grew. You missed it, and despite the fact that your mate died, you are still married to her."

"That's crazy! You never told me that! How could I have committed adultery if I never knew that I was married? And she's dead for Christ's sake!" Clark found himself screaming to the heads over his, for the second time that day losing his iron-grip control.

"The time when you choose humanity over your heritage, you were one of them except by blood. But when you let yourself, as Kal-El, get involved with a female human when you were not one of them, and that involvement had as a result a child, that was a mistake."

"So you said that my son was a mistake. I am sorry father, but I will never look him as a result of an unconscionable relationship." How could his father be talking about his grandson as if he were something that humiliated his Kryptonian legacy?

"Your child is a miracle my son. When your mother and I were putting you in the spaceship, we had never dreamed that someday you would have your own child. We don't condemn the existence of your child, but the relationship you had with the mother. As Kal-El you committed adultery. As Kal-El you were still married even if she was dead. You had to let her free before you start another relationship."

"And where does that leave us then?" Clark asked, thinking that he had never heard of any other punishment except for the phantom zone. Still, to do that to him would be too much now that they had a child to think of, half blood as he was, but still a child that was meant to be the survivor of their kind.

"When mates didn't want to be together they just had to apply a kind of divorce. But that was acceptable if one of them had found a soul-mate, so the punishment never was realizable. You never did the application and the punishment is going to take place here. It will last 6 hours. You are…"

"I will not accept it. I refuse to be treated as a criminal! And from who? From my own father?!" Clark yelled.

"You are a Kryptonian. You are not a human being. When will you realize that you cannot be one of them?"

Clark wasn't listening any more. His anger was taking over him. Not wanting to see his father's face anymore, he put out the crystals and flew away from what he had thought was home. Only Jason and Lois had that name in his head now, even if not literally. Tonight, he was going to tell Lois who he was, his feelings, what he wanted. That he hoped that she would accept him in her life. If everything turned right tonight, he would have a family to love and who would love him in return.

* * *

Metropolis, White/Lane house, Friday, 23:56

It was time to reveal himself. He didn't know if Richard was going to be there, but he knew that he probably wouldn't. That morning in the office he had heard him tell Lois that he wanted to catch the last plane to NY. The plane had probably left the ground several minutes ago. He was just about to search for her inside the house with his x-ray vision, but then he saw her, sitting on a chair in the yard. She had fallen asleep and that was weird. The night was a bit cold.

"Lois…" he whispered, touching the curls that were falling on her face trying to awake her. "Lois," he said louder, but she didn't wake. He shook her but she stayed frozen, her heart was beating to a slow beat but it was steady.

"What is—"

"NOW!" Someone yelled behind him, and then all he knew was pain and darkness.

A/N: I would like to thank,again, my editors ShadoLibrarian and Misha..they made my dream come true...

I know that its not what you expected but I the story needed this part.Also I would like to inform you that the story will be complete in total,in 9 chapters.


	3. His rant, our horror

A/N: I am sorry that it took me so long to update, I hope to be pleased with this chapter...I remind you that is a really short story, so it will have only 6-7 more chapters. Of course i would like to thank, once again my betas, SHADO and MISHA, for their wonderful job :P:D.

* * *

Fortress of Solitude, Saturday, 13:03 pm 

Lois woke up lying on a frozen floor. Her head was killing her and she felt too dizzy to open her eyes. Her body was going for the ride along with her head, feeling frozen and hurting like hell. Memories of the previous night ran in her head now.

She had been in the kitchen and Richard had been ready to go when the door bell rang. Richard had opened the door to see who was coming at that time of the night but there had been no one. At least not for the fraction of the second in which they both had turned to see each other, frowning at the strangeness of it all. It had been then that she had seen three or four men entering her house and, before she could scream for help, one of them had already shot her with a hypodermic drug dart.

_He was_… Lois fuzzy mind started thinking, trying to place where she had seen the man who had shot her, but her thoughts were interrupted by a voice.

"Good morning, Miss Lane. Welcome to our pleasant gathering," Lex Luthor said, giving her a sardonic grin.

Her head was still hurting, but the voice that she had hoped never to hear again made her open her eyes without a second thought to her pain. She looked quickly around her, and she recognized the place immediately. _The Fortress_. She was lying on the Fortress ground, a place that she never thought she would ever see again after all those years. She hadn't expected to be here with Lex Luthor either. Her thoughts stopped as she saw Richard unconscious beside her, but she stopped breathing when she didn't see Jason anywhere. Panicking, she looked at the man in front of her.

"Where is he? What have you done to him?" she asked with words that nearly choked in her throat. The terror she felt at the possibility that her son could be hurt or even dead made her tremble.

"I already have a headache with the existence of his father; I'm not willing to let it get worse," Luthor said rather coldly, staring at her for what seemed like an eternity, as if he were finding amusing some inner thought about her. "You see Miss Lane, there was a tyrant called Periandros, and he asked the also tyrant Thryasbulus how to rule better his city. You know what he replied, Miss Lane?"

"I…I…" she didn't want to think, she didn't want to guess. Luthor's thoughts were always pointing to one direction: _Kill. _

"He cut all the tall grains of his field, yet Periandros got the message. 'Kill the ones who are different, the ones who are rising above the others, and they will be able to lead them against you'." Luthor's stance took a meaner, darker shade, his eyes piercing hers. "Do you think I will let the boy become his father? He's too much like him to let him live."

She couldn't hear him anymore as all her thoughts were centering on hurting him. Although her body still felt pretty bad, she found the strength to get up and try to hit Luthor, but two pairs of hands stopped her. He wasn't alone. She should have thought of that. The hands were too strong to get away from but that didn't stop her from trying to. She was not going to let them kill her child. And with the clarity of that thought, another one came just as clear: Where was his father right now?

"Bring them in," Luthor ordered to another man as he was taking place in front of the platform.

Two other men brought in the answer to her questions: Superman had been caught by them. They had used her as bait for him. And he had fallen in their trap. They had covered his eyes, and he seemed too weak to walk. It was no wonder, really, the green glow in his face being no other than the dreaded Kryptonite dust. The same dust that Luthor had sent to her son the night before. He barely had any strength to cough as he was fighting to keep breathing. She dreadfully recognized in a second that he wasn't going to last for long; he looked ready to collapse. Then she saw a man carrying her son, and time seemed to stop as she realized that he was unconscious, like Richard behind her.

"Leave him!" she screamed as she tried to free herself from the hands of her captors. "What have you done to my baby?" she screamed again as she was trying to reach her boy, her initial intention to escape forgotten, and his father reacted the same way as he heard her scream: He tried to get away from his captors, but he was too weak to move now.

Luthor nodded to one of the men to stop her, and the man covered her mouth with his hand. Pleased with what he had gained in only a few hours, Luthor activated the crystals' console and the face of Jor-El appeared on the wall.

"My son, Kal-El, we knew that your duty to your family would make you come back. Are you ready to accept your punishment?" the hologram's voice was still almost emotionless as it was echoed in the Fortress. Lois froze by the bluntness tone of that voice.

"Oh this is getting better and better by the second…" he whispered loud enough to the ones he cared to hear him.

"Kal-El, are you accepting your punishment?" Jor-El asked again, on a higher tone.

"And what do you accuse me of?" Luthor asked, as he was starting to enjoy that the world's greatest savior was going to be punished by his own kind. How ironic that his own kind was going to help him ending it.

"We have already talked about that, Kal-El," the voice said, seemingly unmoving at the prospect of his son's pending pain, "Your crime's name is adultery against your birth mate."

"I accept the punishment gladly, my father," Luthor almost screamed with joy.

Lois was dead certain she hadn't heard that right. Adultery? Had Superman been married while they had had their short relationship, before he left? And they were about to punish him for that? His own father was ready to punish him? Were all Kryptonians so strict to their children? Would Superman have been so… so inhuman to their child as well, if he hadn't left?

"Enter to the chamber, my son, and we will take your powers for a short period of time, until the punishment is over you will be vulnerable."

"Put him in the chamber," Lex ordered with a face deformed by joy, mixed with madness.

Lois tried again to free herself from the men who were holding her, but it was all in vain. Jason was lying on the floor next to Luthor, and now they were putting Superman in the chamber. He didn't even have the strength to walk anymore. She couldn't bare to see what was going to happen next so she closed her eyes tight, so tight that her eye balls started to hurt. Yet, she had to open them again when she heard the other men's laughs. They left him there, and then a red light came from the chamber as Superman had curled on the ground inside of it, probably unable to react. In that moment in time, Lois just_ knew _that it was all over. They were still breathing, true, but they were just living on borrow time. They were already dead. She didn't have the strength to scream at that realization, and she couldn't care any less at feeling her tears falling. She needed them to fall, actually, _needed_ to let them free as bad as she was needing to breathe through the sobs that were shaking her body.

"And let's see what we have here," Lex said to his bullies when the door of the chamber opened. The last minutes she had been watching the red light blazed from the chamber had felt like hours to her mind. She was afraid of what she would see next. His powers were a part of him. But it wasn't the lost of his powers that would make him feel crippled –though that frightened her- but his vulnerability.

He grappled Superman's cape and he dragged him out to be seen by the others. Yet Luthor's eyes were telling that he wasn't over with him. A deathly hit wasn't what he had planed for so long. He reached into his right pocket and slowly took out a small dagger. He took Superman's hand then and raised it. He had always wanted to show that he had beaten the ultimate being of their world.

First, he ripped the left sleeve of his suite, confirming Jor-El's words: Superman was no longer super. He was only a man… Luthor's voice wasn't the only proof that he was mad but his eyes were now glowing as he raised the dagger to Superman's bare arm.

Lois heard what she had wished she had forgotten the first time in the plane: His scream. The dagger made a deep wound on his arm. He was bleeding, no doubt he was vulnerable now, and he was suffering. She couldn't bare the agony,that she was hearing on his breath,the same agony she had heard so many times after her son's nightmares the last months.

The glow on Luthor's eyes became lighter as he looked at the blood flowing on the dagger's blade.

* * *

His body was hurting and he was suffering a terrible headache. Where was he? He opened his eyes with difficulty. The walls were white and he was freezing. Someone was talking but his eyes couldn't see clearly who the owner of the voice was. Adultery, punishment, powers. Words in the wind that he barely understood. He didn't try to get up. Something was telling him to wait. Then he heard a scream, one he had heard before, but he didn't recall where exactly. He moved his head a little and he saw Lois being held by two men. He heard her crying, and his eyes looked again for the man that had screamed before. All started to clear on his mind as well as his vision. He had understood all he needed to know.

Superman was bleeding from his left arm and they had forced Lois to see it. He also saw Superman's eyes. They were full of fear and anger -not a trace of pain or agony- as he was ready to dash on to the bald man. Luthor, he thought. Jason always referred to Luthor as the bald man, and then he saw his child. Even if he wasn't by blood, but by love, he was still his. He was lying on the ground next to Luthor on the higher platform. The anger and fear now were filling his eyes as well. Without any other thought he dashed to the men who were holding Lois when Superman did the same, awkwardly because of his weakened state, trying to catch Luthor.He surprised them and they looked frightened. They ran, not wanting to risk their lifes for Luthor anymore. Although Superman didn't have his powers, he'd gone after their boss. The four bullies were now out of the scene. Probably they were trying to go back to what had brought them there.

"Are you okay?" he asked Lois, but she didn't seem to have heard him. Now that she was free, she was trying to reach Jason on the platform, climbing on the crystals. When they finally got on the top, Luthor already had Jason, threatening him with a blood-covered dagger. Superman had frozen six feet away. His look was easy to read: Horror, absolute horror.


	4. Control lost

I would like to thank again my **GREAT** editors **Misha** and **Shado**

"What are you doing, Luthor? Leave the boy. It's me that you want, not him," he said to the madman in front of him.

His body was mortal now and he knew it. If Luthor wanted to kill him, he was ready to accept it to save his son's life. He didn't feel his wounded hand anymore, except from the blood that was tickling his skin as it ran to his fingers.

"I will not make the same mistake again, my friend. Do you know that your baby's body is invulnerable?" But when he saw Superman taking a step forward, he continued with the same deformed grin on his face. "Oh, but don't worry, I_ fixed_ that small detail…"

"What did you do?" he said, terror clearly creeping on his voice, his breath stopping.

"After the dust, I had another plan… liquid kryptonite… small doses… but still, they will kill him eventually. You see, first you get rid of the obstacles, and _then_ you start your plans. That was a rule I forgot last time. First off, be sure that he _is_ dead before you _throw_ him… you are mortal SuperMAN, and I have a dagger in my hand and a gun in my pocket. So I have nothing to lose, but you… you have _everything_ to lose, and you _will_."

He didn't know if it was the lack of his powers, but he couldn't hear a sound of Luthor's words. Yet he understood what he was saying from the motion of his lips. Even more so from his eyes, from those emotionless, empty eyes. The emptiness didn't last much though as it quickly filled with confidence, and then the sound return to his ears.

"FIRST...YOU WILL LOSE...YOUR **SON!**" he screamed and stabbed Jason on his chest. The boy's eyes opened wide for a few seconds, giving to his father a mixed look of pain and confusion. The dagger's blade wedged in the boy's left lung. Luthor suddenly pulled the dagger out and threw it to the floor as he was ready to use now the gun in his right pocket. Jason's light yellow shirt was immediately soaked with blood. His body trembled a few times and blood started to flow to his torso.

His heart ripped in half when he saw Luthor stab his son. And then those light blue eyes lost their innocence as they looked at him for a couple seconds. He heard a far away scream… Lois' scream, as he saw her face behind Luthor's right shoulder, filled with pain. The next thing he knew was that he found himself gripping Luthor's neck and tossed him against the wall. He might not have super-strength anymore, but the adrenaline and the anger that he felt were enough to squeeze the neck under his fingers, and stop Luthor from breathing. He had heard about how adrenaline could make people do unexpected things, but this had come as a surprise. The blood in his body was boiling and that made his veins contract violently. His ears were hot as if they were on fire. Strangely enough, he didn't feel the burning from the kryptonite dust on his face. He didn't know if that had to do with the fact that he was now powerless or because of the dark thoughts that had overpowered his mind as if they were black clouds covering the light of reason and sensation.

"No, death does not, deserve you, it's too easy," he whispered with a voice that couldn't be his, but then again it had come out of his mouth as his jaw was in pain, for the first time in his life, from the tension.

He lifted his left hand and hit Luthor on the face, leaving him unconscious on the ground. It was something that he would have never done if he still had had his powers. His hand was now hurting like hell, and the pain was too much to handle anymore. Being witness of such atrocity had required too much from him, making him lost his temper. Now, it was time to ask for help.

She had just climbed the crystals that were supporting the platform, yet she was late. Luthor had her son and threatened him with the knife that had already hurt his father. He had nothing to lose, he had said, and Superman's eyes shown that he was determined to risk anything to save their child, even his life. He loved him, and he had shown that he was different from his kind. But the knife rose in Luthor's hand and stabbed her Jason. She heard Superman's breath stopped with a gasp and her breath stopped too. She hadn't realized she was screaming till Superman gave her a quick glance before he took Luthor's neck and squeezed it in his right hand, against the wall.

She had never seen him lose control of his actions before. She had never believed that she would see him ready to kill a human, even if the human was his biggest enemy and he had just hurt his son. She had always thought that he was too noble to hurt anyone. And she was right, but the look in his eyes let her known that he was thinking something worse than death.

"No, death does not deserve you, it's too easy..." she heard him whispering with an unfamiliar, almost cruel voice. His humanity had been pushed to his limits. It was like, without his powers, he wasn't the same man. It was madness that led him now. She only wished that the source of his madness was from his parental feelings. After she had seen how his own father had wanted to punish him, she couldn't be sure if now he was showing his Kryptonian origins. That Kryptonian side of his character that had been hidden for so long. Yet, again, she didn't even know if there was a Kryptonian side to refer to.

The next seconds were a blur to Lois' mind: Lex Luthor was lying on the floor and she was trying to stop the bleeding from Jason's chest. She was crying upon him not knowing what else to do like the previous day in _The Planet_. Richard had stayed behind her trying to catch his breath between his sobs.

Superman pushed her away softly and lifted Jason on his arms.

"Father, I need help!" he yelled to the AI face in front him.

"Kal-El," Jor-El spoke after a few seconds, "are you ready for the second phase of your punishment?"

"Father, we don't have time, my son needs help! And for heavens sake can't you understand, when your son is speaking from an imposter, one that hurt my child?" he yelled again with agony.

'_They are truly so cruel that they will let my child die, his grandson die, because of his human nature? Because of me?' _Lois thought, not willing to believe her thoughts nor being able to drift them away.

"We will gladly help the last of our kind, my son, but first, you must recognize him as your own child."

"We don't have time, he barely breathes," he said, and then his voice cracked. "Father,** _please._**"

"Put him in the chamber and, until we heal him, you will do your duty as his father and as my son. You will recognize the child and we will discuss your punishment."

He put their child in the chamber, which lightened up, and quickly, without ever looking at her, he returned to the platform.

"I don't know if I will accept the punishment, is not fair," he said, reminding Lois of her own boy when he was trying to avoid the responsibilities of his actions, but this was different. They were wrong. They had to be wrong.

"Before, you spoke about someone, that pretended to be you, the one that hurt your child, I presume. Did he move against you?" Jor-El said, turning the debate to another subject.

Superman was confused by the change of subject, but he was ready to answer. It was apparent by the look of his face.

"That man has tried and succeeded in hurting me too many times, and now he targeted my son. I have faith in the human justice, I do, but I have put him behind bars too many times and every time he finds a way to escape. He always takes pleasure in making plans against me… and now against my son…"

"So," Jor-El interrupted him, "this time you think to act differently."

"Yes," Superman confessed, and he seemed guilty for this, "I want to apply to the Kryptonian justice this time, and I want to consider as a punishment—"

"Kal-El, my son," his father spoke with a deeper voice, cutting his words, "Kryptonian society had her own justice. The punishments on that justice were few and were rarely enforced. Don't forget that we were an advanced society that does not relate with the human society that raised you. How can you now, Kal-El, ask from us justice, when you ignore our laws?"

Superman turned his head and closed his eyes. She saw his closed eyeballs moving inside their cavities.

"I accept," he finally said, but he didn't open his eyes.

"Kal—"

"NO!" Lois automatically yelled.

"Who spoke?" Jor-El asked with the same soft voice that Superman used when he was talking to her. With the same tone in his voice that he had used when he had met her on the rooftop after five years.

"She is the mother," Superman answered as he was giving her an oddly familiar grin. But then he gave her a brief look that told her not to continue. It was his decision, and she respected it, but she still wanted to protest.

"She is the reason," Jor-El replied.

Lois opened her mouth to say something but she closed it as Jor-El spoke again.

"Even if he lives among you, humans, he will never be one of you. He knew that. He had to think before he acted, even when his motive was love. I sent him to you to save his life, but I also sent him to help you. The light that is in his blood and soul is also in the child you gave birth to, and he will follow in his fathers' steps. You can not do anything to prevent it, just embrace what Krypton had the chance to give you. As for Kal-El, he had to choose."

"Ehm, guys, I don't want to disturb you but the light in the chamber, it has just turned off."

Lois jumped startled by the voice that had come behind her: Richard. She had forgotten him completely. The door of the chamber opened and Superman got the boy again in his arms and stand in front of his father's head.

"He will recover in a few hours," the AI head said, "he just needs to rest. But we left something unresolved, Kal-El. Recognize your son and spoke his name to be written in the House of El."

Lois couldn't believe it. After all those years she was seeing her son on his father's arms, being recognized by him as the last of his kind. She had really given birth to a miracle and, as Jor-El had said, she was ready to embrace his other nature. Although she didn't know if she could handle his father's as well. _How could I have the one I have wanted for so long, when he wasn't meant to ever be one of us?_

_TBC_

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	5. A Healer Lane Among The Stars

Jason's clothes had blood spots all over. He didn't have the wound under his left lung anymore. This boy, he knew, meant everything to his life. He was even a reason to die for. _He and his mother_, Clark thought. He didn't want to think about his punishment as he was ready to call Jason for the first time his son, to admit for the first time loudly that the small five year-old child who was in front of him was his own flesh and blood. His and Lois' little miracle, which made him so much more special. With those thoughts he was lifting the boy from the cold floor. Without his powers, he felt now not only the burning that the wound was causing on his left arm, but the heaviness of the child as well.

From the corner of his eye he saw Richard's face. Richard loved his son, he had called his boy _son_ for five years and now he had to go through this. Clark knew that he was hurting him, and he felt awful, yet his joy left him be selfish for once in his life. He felt exactly like the first night he had seen Jason sleeping on his bed. He was a father. All the love he had for the world was now focused on that little breathing newfound treasure. His heartbeat was perfectly accompanied by his mother's. He had never seen something so perfect, he had never had heard something more beautiful, he had never touched something more valuable than his son. It was scary to fill his heart with so many feelings. Feelings that he had never thought that he could ever experience because of who he was.

"I, Kal-El, son of Jor–El of the House of El, I recognize this child as my own. According to my bloodline I give him the name of my house. According to my wish, I name him Jason Lane. Let it be written to my House Lineage that next of kin of Jor-El's son, Kal-El, is his son, Jason Lane-El.

The boy was still sleeping, unknowing of what was happening around him, yet he felt him moving in his arms. He had already missed a lot of his son's life, and he wasn't willing to miss another second.

"Jason Lane-El it is then. We welcome him to life and let us hope he will always be worthy to his House and to his ilk." Jor –El's head spoke first and then appeared other Kryptonians who were repeating his fathers father's words.

"And now, my son, it is time. The criminal must be punished according to our laws. Before that, you must send away, for a while, the humans and the child. You must also change your clothes. You are not going to speak in court as a human or as an Earthian hero. You will be presented as an offended Kryptonian citizen. We will be expecting you, as we will keep the one you accuse for criminal actions under our supervision."

"Please follow me," he said to Lois, who was crying now and was held by Richard. The sting in his heart had nothing to do with his mortality, and he wished he had five more wounds like the one on his left hand instead of this terrible feeling that was making him feel like something was clenching inside of him and made his stomach twist into knots.

He guided them behind the crystal wall, where there was a simple white room. Then, he opened a door that led to the rooms that he had entered for the last time as a teenager. It was a miniature version of his house on Krypton, which had been created there clearly for sentimental reasons. He wasn't ready to look Lois in the eyes yet, especially not after he had seen her held by Richard. He led them to his parents' room and set Jason on the bed. The movement made him remember again his wounded arm, and it also released him from his painful thoughts.

He touched Jason's hair and remembered again Lois' hair the nights before he left for that damn journey to Krypton. What was wrong with him? He was seeing Lois on Jason's smile, hair, expression, even in his voice sometimes. And then he noticed something that he hadn't seen until right that moment.

"I never had realized..." he whispered as he was looking into his son's face.

"What?" Richard asked him, trying to clear his voice from the feelings he had been trying to hide all this time.

Clark hesitated for a moment, then he dared to look again to Lois' eyes and he saw that she wanted to know his thoughts about their son too. She had every right to hear this and so much more...

"I… I just… you see I have had to see my father's face for a long time… and you know, I just saw, ehm… the similarity between them. Their faces are look-alike… I think..." Now he was sounding more like the mumbling Clark, and he didn't want to. He just couldn't always separate his two identities. Both Lois and Richard had noticed the different tone and sure enough they were bound to find his awkwardness strongly familiar.

"With who?" Lois asked again, trying to understand what he was saying.

"My father and my s—… and Jason," he finally said. He had held back himself before he had said the word "son". He wanted to say out loud that word as no other in the entire world, but he knew that Richard couldn't bear this much more. It was too soon.

"You see, I have never seen him out of the crystal wall and now…. now it is like…" he couldn't continue but his thoughts were running in his head _'…__and now it is like he's alive again. I see my father on his face as I hear you in his laugh. God Lois... and I can't believe it, it's a miracle.'_ He had used the word miracle for his son three times already, maybe more, but that was exactly what he was… his mere existence was a miracle all by itself.

He didn't want to stay any longer in the room. He had to give an end to Luthor's threat, to get free from the burden of his own fears. To start living to be happy and _finally_ to tell six words that really count only for three. _I'm Clark, I love you._ He had to go back to the main room and start the trial. But first he had to change. He opened his father's closet and found the same black clothes that he had given as a birthday gift to Jason. His mother, even at her late sixties, was more than eager to materialize her son's gift idea. He took one of the existent pairs and then turned his back to leave, as he watched Richard still holding Lois' hand. They were both sitting now on the bed, next to Jason. The boy's clothes were covered with blood, and surely he didn't want his son to wake up and see his own blood covering the clothes.

He quickly cleaned his hand in the bathroom. '_Thank God that the Fortress has water supplies from the ice'_, he thought as he dressed himself with the black clothes, groaning now and then because of the pain that his arm caused him. The black clothes had a silver S in the center like his suit but, thankfully for his arm, they weren't tight. One other room that he hadn't visited for a long time was the children's room. His room. The replica of the room where he had stayed the first months of his life. He didn't know why, but the closets there were full of children's clothes. Those were the clothes that he had described to his mother about how he wanted Jason's pajamas. He picked a black pair,like the one he was wearing himself, made sure it was the right size, and walked out as fast as he had come in.

He slowly walked into the room where he had left Jason, Lois, and Richard a few minutes before, and saw Lois hugging Richard. He stayed there, staring at them, and it seemed as if ages had passed by and not just seconds. Richard turned his eyes to the door and saw him standing there, speechless. He immediately pulled away from Lois.

"I just came in to leave you some clothes for the child," he simply said, yet his mouth had turned to ash. "I thought that it might be a great shock to see his blood on his clothes." He left the black clothes in the corner of the bed and got out of the room in a hurry, not waiting to see if either of them wanted to speak to him. He needed tobreathe again, and the air in that room felt poisonous.

* * *

He knew that he wasn't his son anymore, he had never been actually. When Lois had told him that Jason's father was back, and that he wanted to be a part of his son's life, he had felt that he was just keeping the seat warm for the other guy. Things, however, had changed when she had revealed to him who the father was: Superman. Who could ever compete against **him**? He was a hero, the father of her child, and he was sure that he was somehow connected to her, like no other man could ever be. Not even him. He couldn't bear to see her struggling for his attention, for his love, for a single kiss. He knew that Superman was a good man and that he had her. Richard also knew that Superman was too noble to claim her. That manloved her too much to make her choose or suffer for the rest of her life. It had been then when he had taken the first plane and had left. The only thing he had wanted – and still wanted - was to see her happy.

Now he was realizing that she wasn't happy, so then again he wasn't either. He had always thought that he couldn't compete against him because of his powers, but then again, he had never seen what was underneath the suit. He was someone who loved Lois as no one else had ever done and he was willing to give his life for those he loved the most. He was mortal now, he had lost his divine nature, and yet he still was like a god. He was still a hero. He was Superman and nothing could ever change that. With or without powers.

"He is a good man, Lois," he finally said, "Why are you both wasting your time? I see the love there, I see his eyes fill with love. Why?"

Lois took her eyes from her son's face, who she had been staring at all this time after Superman had told them about the similarity between Jason and his own father.

"How will you say to a star to come down to earth, Richard?" she answered him, and her voice was almost a whisper. "You've seen that he can't live without his powers, and I would never ask him to do that. Can't you see? He will never be able to live a normal person's life, or whatever normal is for Superman."

"So you leave him because he has powers, because he can't take his son to the park without his suit? I think, Lois, that he doesn't live in this suit." Richard tried to raise the tone of his voice but the last words came out drowned. It was more a conclusion. Nobody can live in a superhero suit, nobody is perfect even if he isn't human.

"But I do, Richard. He can't have a son, he can't have a wife, **he can't live as a human and he knows that**. How will I pull him out of his suit? How will I tell him that life is something more than to be a savior? Howwill I stick him in an office, and make him put the world on hold? How?" And then it hit him. As long as he was unreachable she was safe. Safe from her own feelings, her fears. _The_ fear that she will get hurt. It was better for her if love was to be a distant dream. By choosing that way he could never had the chance to hurt her. But he had already done it... and he was the only one that could reach so deep to her emotions, deep enough to cause a serious damage.

"No one said that it would be easy, Lois. You—"

"I must let him go," she said with a bitter tone. "And that's killing me…"

Richard didn't know if she was right or wrong. He wanted to make her feel that he was there for her, not as a fiancé, not as a man with feelings, but as a friend. So he hugged her. She fell on him trying not to let her tears fall, and he hugged her tighter and hoped that he could remove the painful thoughts and make her smile again. He was one of the few people on this planet that had seen her out of her cold, bossy, and always restrained self. And to think that the one who had made her act like this was not even from Earth. But then again, he was more human than many he knew.

He turned his eyes to the door and he saw him. He was standing there, just staring at the scene. Who knew how long he had been there? Had he heard them? He hoped he had, but he had forgotten that he didn't have powers anymore. He was wearing the same clothes that Clark had given to Jason the previous day, and he was holding something black as well. He entered the room only to leave the clothes, and then he said that he had brought them for the child. Not for his son, for the child. His left hand was shaking but he didn't seem to notice it. Without waiting for them to talk to him, he left as fast as he could.

Lois looked back but it was too late. He was already gone. Her eyes were still wet even if the tears hadn't appeared.

"Richard…"

"Stay here, and change Jason's clothes. I will go talk to him."

He had nearly come into the room where he hadwoken up almost an hour ago. There were no lights, only one that was pointing to Lex Luthor, who was now standing inside two moving circles. The soft light of the AI heads filled the room, lighting a bit more Superman,who was under the heads, already speaking.

"The human in front of you is accusedof attacking Kryptonian citizens. He tried to kill the last members of the House of El and his plans, which were stopped by me, had as a result great catastrophes on the planet Earth. I would also like to add that his intensions were to kill people of his own kind. For that reason above all I will ask you to judge him, and if there is a punishment that would perfectly befit him, let it be the Phantom Zone. Alexander Luthor, I leave you to the council's judgment and mercy."

Superman turned his back to leave as Luthor pulled a gun from his pocket and shot him before Richard could scream to warn him. Although the bullet never passed the moving circles, Luthor didn't have any other words to say._ Or it just couldn't be heard, because of the circles, _Richard thought.

"The council finds the human, Alexander Luthor,"

"Guilty"

"Guilty"

"Guilty"

"Guilty"

"Guilty"


	6. When The Stars Stop To Shine Part 1

Please forgive me, I know that I update once a month but right now my university classes started again and I will sit the FCE exam next week so I'm really stressed (and with terrible stomach aches)

This chapter is my favorite and is based to a dream I had a long time ago. I know that it might be too harsh for you, yet it was written that way because of a challenge and some feelings that I was keeping for a long time bottled.

Don't worry, the next chapters will not be like this. Actually the 7th chapter is one of the sweetest chapters in my story (Remember Jason's thoughts in the DP's office?:D) and the 9th is THE romantic chapter with an unexpected epilogue.

Also I would like to thank Shado and Misha for their wonderful work. Please stay with me until the end of the story. Even if you don't review don't worry just smile and be sure that someone far away from you will somehow feel it;)

I am not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world.  
-Socrates

-Kleo

* * *

"Do you have anything to say Luthor?" Superman asked,hidden in the shadows.

"Possibilities. Endless possibilities" Lex whispered to himself, ignoring Superman's question.

All the lights suddenly turned off. All the heads, except for Jor-El's disappeared in a glowing fog. Richard couldn't see Superman or Luthor only Jor-El's floating head, until a beam of light hit Luthor's body. Slowly but steady, a small pentagon mirror came down to meet the light-covered body. There was a feeling that the mirror was guided by the light and it wasn't far from the truth. Far before the shining object touched him Luthor started to laugh.

"YOU FOOL!" he screamed still laughing "You give me TIME! Nothing lasts forever... except from one thing You will _always _be an alien. There are no connections to the human race for you, not even through your bastard son. Even less through his mother By the way I liked her perky boyfriend."

Luthor was so lost in his mumbling that he hadn't realized that the shimmering mirror was floating up over his head. The moment the pentagon touched him, Luthor disappeared inside the mirror. Apparently now he was screaming to be released, as he was rising higher and higher inside his mirror cell,until he got out of the Fortress' open ceiling.

The lights returned to reveal an obviously wrecked man. He seemed defeated. His eyes were tightly closed and his face full of wrinkles from the tension. For a _few_ moments his body trembled violently.Then he regained control of himself as his two blue, clouded, wet eyes turned to look at his father's AI.

"Father, I am ready to accept my punishment." His voice was so different now. Although it wasn't emotionless, Richard couldn't catch what this new sound could possible mean. He tried to match it with the countless emotions that were passing through those stormy eyes. What could that raged storm hide? Who was the man that was hiding behind those eyes, the suit? Hiding from the world and, most of all, hiding from Lois Lane?

"Nothing will hurt me more than this son, even if we were an advanced civilization the punishment that you will receive **is** barbaric. You have to know, before you accept, there is--"

"I_want_to proceed_now_. Which is the nature of the punishment?" Superman interrupted, sounding now fearless, although his body was trembling slightly again.

_'He thinks that he has nothing to lose.'_ Richard thought.

"Flagellation, 30 whips on your back, Kal-El—"

Superman's eyes turned to look the floating head again. There was no fear reflected in his eyes, only pain. The pain quickly turned to anger. An anger that hurt him more than it could be possible. Strangely enough his present feelings seemed to have nothing to do now with the flogging. He lightly sighed before determination appeared in his unexpectedly tired eyes.

"_So let it be_" he took off his black shirt to reveal his smooth beige torso. The muscles that all this time had been hiding under his suit were now exposed to the cool air of the room. Richard noticed his stomach muscles constrict a few times before he placed himself under his father's AI head and wait for his punishment to start.

"Son forgive me, you must..." Jor-El said almost with tears on his eyes, _but could an AI really cry? _Richard thought again.

"JUST DO IT!!!" Superman angrily yelled.

Nothing seemed to appear when Richard first heard something striking the air and then the sound of flesh tearing apart. A second later the man that was standing a few feet away gasped, shocked. Deep cuts were now visible. Blood drops started to flow from his mid back, ending on his black pants above his buttocks. The man's back started to turn red in and outside of his skin. Quickly, bruises appeared in places where the invisible whip hadn't successfully detached the skin yetΤέλοςφόρμαςΑρχήφόρμας. Richard's breath started to be quicker, his hands were now sweating. God, why he had to be so close to physically and yet too far away to help him? He was close enough to hear the second strapping and see the skin tightening and then shivering to open finally slowly in front of Richard. Before the first ten whips were finished, the flesh under his skin was revealed, the strikes now removing not only skin, but also small pieces of flesh. Every strike brought away more than just a strip of skin. Still living flesh was thrown in the air and then landed in the floor spotting it red. The blood flowed now from his quivering flesh, covering the untouched skin and the heavy wet pants.

Soon enough Superman couldn't stand anymore, so he heavily knelled on the polished from blood floor. He had been beaten ruthlessly, yet his lips were firmly closed, gasps and groans never found their way out. Only one word was being said to the stifling air when the blows found their mark. A word spoken repeatedly with an unimaginable passion and affection for those moments. _Lois_

With the whip working on the upper body, skin, flesh and soon enough the formerly protected muscle tissues were ripped from his previous smooth shoulders. New wounds of blood were gushed in small rivers, coming down through his arms. Finally, the blood started to fall from his fingertips in several drops to the floor. It was almost over when his messy, sweaty and bloody hair touched the ground.

Richard couldn't understand how he could be curled like that when his swollen bleeding back was missing at least a half centimeter of flesh. Richard was now shaking in the sight of the blood. He felt nausea revolting his stomach as he smelled what he thought was fresh blood. He suddenly lost the ability to breath, and he wasn't the only one.

His head started to spin and dizziness came pretty quickly. They were both ready to collapse but that was not going to happen. _'Just Keep Breathing,'_ he thought_ 'Whatever happens__ Keep Breathing' _and he wasn't talking only to himself. As he was listening to him, Kal-El took two sharp and brief breaths. Something had stopped the whips and he didn't seem happy about it. Relived, maybe, but definitely not happy at all.

"Give me the last two," he hoarsely ordered. It was unbelievable, he almost begged for it, and he got it.

The last two strikes laid him on the floor. The blood and the flesh from his back was now painting the previously dazzling white floor red.Kal-El had curled trying to stop himself from gasping, but it was then that the sobs started. Richard took a step forward and then stopped almost instantly. He had seen too much already. He had seen something more than a back turned to a livid and bloody mass of raw and quivering muscle. He had seen a soul ripped in the edge of that man's being. Not wanting to be seen by the man who was helplessly suffering curled on the floor, he went back to the room where Lois was waiting for him. _'God, what am I going to tell her?' _he thought shaking his head, still trying to overcome the feelings of sickness that he felt after what he had witnessed.

* * *

"You talked to him?" she asked furiously when he came into the room. Jason was still sleeping but now he was wearing the same black outfit, with the silver «S» like his father. He didn't know if the child had his grandfather's characteristics, as he could now swore that he was seeing a miniature of the man that was lying on his own blood in the main room. He was sure that when the boy grew up he was going to be a lot like his father. He wondered why he had never seen in Jason those similarities, not so much in his physique, but in his mind all those months that he knew the truth. His father was really a hero with every meaning that word could ever take.

"No" he shook his head still lost in his thoughts

"You look pale what happened Richard, what happened?" she demanded to hear what had **made** him look like that.

Did she really want to hear what had happened in there? Did she really want to know that the greatest hero of the planet had tendencies to self-injury because of her? It sounded funny but the truth was, it was tragic.

"Well, we don't have to worry about Luthor at least. His chapter has been closed by Superman." Richard told her. It was better to hear that there was no threat for Jason or his father. But he didn't saw relief in her eyes but fear.

"Did he… he… he kill him?" she said with the same fear that had colored her voice before.

"No, of course not. He sent him to a Kryptonian prison, I think, inside a mirror or something," Lois' eyes came to her normal look and she returned to her son's side.

"That's why you couldn't talk to him. I wonder, what is he thinking now Richard? I am sorry that I dragged you into this. I am so sorry" she blamed herself. And he was really going to give her another reason to fell guilty. Maybe not, if he could say it to her with the right words.

"Nothing to be sorry about, it was meant to happen, and it happened. I chose to be _a_ part of your life and _I am_ I'm still one, but now I take the place of the friend you need." '_And now the bomb' _he thought. "The reason I didn't talk to him was because after Luthor's trial, he accepted his punishment. I watched him pay for something that he had never been accused of. He- "

Lois interrupted him as usual and she turned her eyes once again on his.

"What did they do to him?"

Richard didn't want to answer her straight. He wanted first to make her understand that it wasn't her fault. That the man had accepted the punishment because he was emotionally hurt maybe even by despair but never by guilt. She gave him another famous Lane look and now he couldn't keep from her what had happened.

"They... they whipped him." The words came out without him wanting them to. Lois' face fell again and tears started to be ready to fall but instead, her face turned red. Mad Dog Lane was back, only this time, she wasn't hunting a story.

"They said that they were advanced, but they were and are barbarians" she yelled forgetting her sleeping child was beside her. The boy moved, annoyed by her yelling, making Lois take him to her lap and started to sing him a lullaby. When she was done with - actually sick of it - the singing, the boy was again in a deep sleep so she left him and approached Richard again. '_This can't be good_,' he thought.

"Why did he accept the punishment? Why if he wasn't sure that his relationship with me was only a mistake? He loves his son I know he does, but what if he thinks that I was a mistake?" Lois' voice cracked and she sat heavily on the bed.

"You two weren't a mistake and he doesn't think that, I'm sure of that" he tried to calm her down. "He loves you more than you think."

"I don't know, I really don't. I hope not, because that way it would be easier to leave him live without forcing him to be something that he will never be. He lives in another world and you have seen what happened because he touched ours. How bad is he? I want to see him,"she made a move to stand up, to run into the room where a man was lying and hurting all alone.

"No" Richard shouted at her and stopped her from making a major mistake. The same one that he had been ready to make a few minutes ago. "He needs to be alone. He needs to come through this alone. Don't make him feel more vulnerable than he already is"

Lois looked at the room's door and she took a step forward but then she stopped. She understood his point so she sat again in the bed next to him. Now they just had to wait.


	7. When The Stars Stop To Shine Part 2

**A/N: I know... I know... It took me almost a month. Again...:O I'm in the middle of my University's exam period so consider this update as a miracle:P I had to write a whole new dialog while I was steadying so don't be to harsh with me... Okay, now (as always) I want to thank my two amazing editors, my miracle makers:O _SHADOLibrarian _and _Misha_ (aka RoswellianMisha) And here it is, Chapter 6 Part 2. Enjoy!:D**

Fortress of Solitude, Saturday, 20:38pm

Lying curled up on the Fortress floor he didn't know how much time had passed. He didn't even care actually, until he thought about the possibility to be found like this by Richard or even worse Lois. His chest was freezing, yet his back had the exactly opposite feeling: It was burning and stinging. He could now feel his pulse beating in his ravaged veins exposed to the cool air. He felt like they had ripped the flesh from his back and he knew that it wasn't only a thought. It was the truth.

He had never imagined that there was such kind of pain. A pain in this world that would literally make him kneel. After New Krypton he had had a taste of the meaning of _pain_. But now he was feeling in his own skin another dimension of that term. The human body dimension.With every hit he had been recalling apart of the reason that had caused the punishment. _Liar, _a voice was now screaming in his head, no one had forced him to accept. He was recalling her lips as he was biting his own from the pain. Her smooth skin as his own was dissolved. Her tender voice from the nights before he left, instead of the sharp cracking sound of the whip that was raping the air. God he loved her, yet as it seemed, she had moved on AGAIN.

He stood on his knees with his back killing him as the dry blood had broken and fresh one started to flow again. His eyes He blinked several times in rapid succession because of the remaining tears. At least with the pain in his back, he had forgotten his arm, but not the pain that was tearing his soul.

"Kal-El?" he heard his father's voice calling him.

"What else do you want?" he asked through his clenched teeth. He was sure that the giant AI head would hear the anger on his voice and eventually he would leave him alone. '_All alone, again_,' he sarcastically thought. He was wrong. As he turned to where the head was supposed to be, he saw a man walking straight to him. 

"Why did you accept it?" the man asked with the voice of his father's AI. Now the man was in front of him. He was a form that Kal-El had never seen out of the crystal wall. He was..._ him_.

"You told me to do so," he replied, breathing heavily._ LIAR, _the voice screamed again inside his head.

"No, I never forced you, I asked you. All this time you never let me tell you how to avoid this irrational punishment. You almost begged for it. Why?'" Jor-El asked, pain evident in his voice.

'_I could have avoided it? That was... a surprise.'_ He didn't regret having accepted the whipping. Was he mad or something? _'No I'm just... No!'_ It was too painful to admit it again…

"What do you care anyway?" he snapped at him as every muscle on him protested to his sudden movement when he got up to face Jor-El. You only wanted to follow your rules, your laws and** I DID IT.**"

"I wanted you to follow rules and laws for the benefit of those that are weaker than you. Weaker to act and think right."

"Here we go again" he murmured trying to find which crystal would turn down the AI. At the same time his bleeding wounds didn't help him much.

"I am your father. I loved you as a father and even if I lost everything that makes it right to use that word, my love for you… _It _will overcome my already forfeit rights once again and let me selfishly claim you as my son. Even if it is only for my own ears."

Clark's hands stopped searching on the control panel. He looked his father's glittering eyes and realized what he had said. All that, it was just a voice, a guide, an echo from the past. Now he turned to be something more than just a link _with_ to his origins. He claimed a place next to his foster father, and it was then when he understood that he had every right to do it. Jor-El tried to be a father to him like he was trying to be a father for Jason.

"So, why did you do it? Do you feel regrets about your involvement with her?" he asked him again.

"Never! That, never... I wanted to stop, for once I wanted to stop," he knew that he wasn't making any sense, although his father's eyes seemed to understand him.

"I wanted to feel something else than the emotional pain I thought that it would make the other go away**…** that it would make me..."

" closer to them," Jor-El finished for him. "When will you understand that is not your gifts what make you different? Even if you are like humans without your powers, it is not that what makes you an outcast. You are different, but you don't have to be an outcast."

"I've already explained to you why I hesitate for you to be involved with a human," Jor-El added with a hint of averseness.

"Yes, your explanation was crystal clear," Clark sarcastically said. "As a mater of fact, hasn't my involvement cost me enough to spare me another lecture?"

"If you think, my son, that I or the council had anything to do with the deep cuts on your back, or the harsh nature of your punishment, then you are terribly wrong."

Clark was taken aback of what he had just heard. A sense of paranoia started to fill dangerously the air.

"This fortress is what is left from our civilization, Kal-El. It doesn't have the power to force you to do anything you don't really want. It was build _so_ to guide you, not to control you. The truth is that you have the control of what is going to be done and how." He took a few more steps closer to him to reveal so much more than Clark wanted at the moment. Characteristics that had never occurred to him to notice for more than two seconds in the mirror in his life, were now placed in someone else's face except from his son's.

"When you accepted your punishment you practically gave the system the order to start. The strikes should have caused only a few bruises yet _you_ demolished your back." He didn't see him take a few steps closer or run his hand on his swollen and still bleeding back. Yet surprisingly, Jor-El's hand didn't cause him pain when he finally noticed the old man standing beside him, just a brief alleviating breeze.

A sigh of relief escaped easily from his dry lips. For a second he forgot the pain, the confusion and the anxiety that had taken over his body and mind the last 48 hours. In that second he closed his eyes and when he opened them again he focused on the black cores of his father's cerulean eyes.

"How is it possible that I am responsible for my injuries? It doesn't make sense," the words came out cold, careless. The truth was that he was so emotionally drowned that there was no strength left to color his voice anymore. 'Nothing seems to make sense anymore,' he thought.

"Lets leave that question be the last, shall we?" a faint smile appeared in Jor-El's face to let him know that there were other matters to be discussed long before that.

"First, can you tell me why have you been punished?"

"You implied that I had committed adultery," Clark answered with a sarcastic smile.

"To whom? Only to your dead mate? It's more complicated than you think." Now it was Jor-El's turn to show frustration. Frustration that Clark couldn't place.

"When you accepted your punishment you didn't only recognize the link between you and your Kryptonian life companion. You also admitted that your relationship with the human was a mistake. That it wasn't a relationship based on true feelings, or one that had potential to be a lifetime commitment." This time his father's voice came out twisted in bitter disbelief that Clark didn't catch immediately.

"That's not true!" he shouted, "You... you..." his breathing stopped unexpectedly. He felt his heart pounding painfully in his chest while a weird sense of dizziness came over him.

"You've got to be kidding me!" He managed to whisper before kneeling again, trying unsuccessfully to take more air with a few brief inhales into his lungs. Surprisingly the Jor-El's AI didn't seem to worry about it.

"It's just a panic attack. You need to calm down a bit. You pushed yourself too hard today." The worry that was nowhere to be seen on his face was now sounding clearly in his voice. "It's too much to take. It would be better to leave the rest for another time."

"No! It has to end now." He couldn't postpone it anymore. He needed answers. Answers, untold facts and maybe,just maybe, at one of the corners of his life, there would be a hint of hope. "Please," he was pleading. _That was definitely not a good sign._

"The truth, Kal-El, is that you were the one that never thought that you could have the ability to have a lifetime commitment until now. You were the one that lead the whip because of your guilt. Because of the grief of what you lost. You embraced fully your Kryptonian nature yet you forgot that you were brought up as a human." He was speaking to him softly. Like a father to his few years old child. Things that should be simpler than breathing were turning to be more difficult than life itself. But that's what this was about. His life.

"You always told me that even if I was brought up as a human being I would never be one of them-" Every second brought him closer to madness.

"That's true. But you never found the balance you needed in your life. Your genealogy, your heritage is Kryptonian but your spirit is completely human-like. You loved someone and the only thing you had to do to avoid all this mess was to give her the place of your dead Kryptonian mate with just one statement. Was it so hard?" he asked.

"It wasn't hard. It was terrifying and the only thing that I desperately wanted for years." He chuckled at the thought of his son's strong headed mother before turning back to his serious mood once again. Ordered

"I don't' have all the answers you want son. I have to let you seek for the answers you want alone. Just remember that problems are always made of their own answers. It's oxymoron yet it's true." Jor-El was leaving him again to let him struggle for answers.

"What about the whipping? You haven't told me how I caused it. Ordered it to start, yes, but what happened? How could it begin to whip me to eventually rip half of my back. I want this answer" He _had_ to have an answer to this.

"Because you thought that it was what you deserved for your adultery against your human mate. I tried to stop it before you killed yourself. Although I couldn't stop it, I managed to make the strikes gentler before I successfully stopped them two strikes before its end. You were the one that demanded the last two so the program obeyed." His body had a weird numb sensation all over. It was a nightmare. Now he wanted to find the blissful dream that was hidden somewhere in this story.

"I was a fool, wasn't I? A fool among fools. I played it so well for so long that it got under my skin without notice." The numb sensation never left his body, as now was blanking his mind.

"You live among a race with potentials. A race that not only have you saved a thousand times over, but that you also love unconditionally. You allowed yourself to be loved and because of that you created a unique piece of greatness for this world."

"Jason... "

"If it's not unique to see two worlds, two persons, two individuals connected through the existence of a child, then I do not see what unique is really meant to mean."

Those were his final words. The AI form turned to fog, leaving him with more questions than before.

* * *

"Is he awake?" he firmly asked Lois as he stood still in the room's door.

"Only for a few minutes, then he fell asleep again." Lois answered, staring at him with a worried look._ 'But she couldn't have known anything,'_ Clark thought. The reason was probably that he looked like hell.

"I dressed him with the clothes you gave us. You know, my colleague, Clark, gave him the same clothes but made with a different fabric? They look more than pajamas, than…"

"I know, I gave them to him" he cut her off, not wanting to reveal too much, in front of Richard.

"You know Clark?" Lois asked him, surprised.

"It's not the time, or the place to discuss this but yes, more than you think" he said using a final tone to end what he couldn't finish at the moment. There were going to enter to a dangerous territory, he was sure, and he also knew that he was not going to survive if Lois' smolder temper came back to the surface. Not now, not ever...

"He knows about... Jason? Have you told him that..." _'she _can't_ even say it', _Clark thought. _'She can't even say that he is your son.'_

"I never needed to tell him anything," he said, letting her know that he didn't want to keep talking about Clark any further. Even better, not to talk about anything at all.

He saw Jason sleeping and then he noticed that there was something different about his hair. Lois had made him a small curl. Now he really looked exactly like Jor-El. Only the age and the white hair were missing. When he had wanted to see how the boy was doing and to inform them about their departure, he had never intended to come so close to Lois or his son. Now he was standing above the boy's head and his right hand's fingers played with his son's curl. He smiled and saw Lois and Richard do the same. He was ready to kiss him on his forehead but his back stung him so the smile turned to a grimace of pain. He stopped and touched again his son's forehead before he lost the courage that the smiles had given him. That loss of courage made him step back from his son's resting bed.

He didn't want the others to realize that something was wrong with his back. He played one more time with the curl and lifted his hand from the child's forehead. Then, it happened. A drop of blood that had dripped from his back had just fallen on his son's forehead. Terrified, he looked at his hand and saw other small rivers drifting down from the same source. Shocked, he looked up to Lois. She had frozen. She slowly turned her wide eyes from the blood spot on Jason to his eyes and right back again to the child.

"My arm is still bleeding. Sorry," technically, he hadn't lied to her. His left arm was still bleeding a little. _'Yes, but only a little,' _a familiar voice whispered in the back of his head once again._ 'Oh, shut up,'_ he replied to himself.

"That wasn't your hand," she said, stressing every word to him, lifting his right sleeve, to prove her statement.

"I… I…" he mumbled and turned his back to her face, trying to escape from her indignant look that her sparkling fire eyes were given him now.

He was ready to walk out of the room, when she touched him on his back, trying to stop him. The pain froze him instantly, his breath stopped, and he turned to look at her again. He saw her looking at him, her hand in shock. Her hand was slightly covered with his own blood. The damned blood had wet his black clothes. He didn't look in her eyes again – he wasn't going to give her an answer. He just opened the nearest closet and picked aclean outfit.

Slowly, he turned to Richard and their eyes met. He had to be honest with them. At least with the one thing he should be...

"I can't take us back. My powers will be back in a few hours, yet I will need days to restore my strength before I can fly," he unwilling confessed. "Richard, Luthor brought us here with helicopters, I believe that his bullies haven't took them all, could you see if you can handle flying one of those?"

"I believe that we will not have any problem with that," he assured him, trying not to look at Lois' hand and the blood that was making her lose control of her breathing with every passing second.

"We will check it then. Hopefully, we will be ready to leave in one hour," Clark said briefly and reached for the door quickly, with moves that cut his breath with every step he took.

He heard behind him Richard saying "Okay," as he was going straight to the bathroom. In the next fifteen minutes, the water in the bath had colored red. Clark had found finally some relief to his open wounds. Today, he had entered Hell and he hadgotten out of it _almost _in one piece.


	8. Sleeping child the world's so wild

**A/N: It took me 3 months but I'm back! By the way I'm sorry for the delay (as always) RL was a bit crazy lately. **

**About this chapter: It was chapter that it wasn't supposed to exist in this story. It's a child's chapter and that makes it short because children tend to think for minutes but feel, really feel the world around them 24/7. Sappy, I know...**

**Misha and Shado Librarian thank you for your great help. You truly are my dream makers.**

**

* * *

**

Jason woke up trembling. He took a few short breaths, fearing that the sharp pain in his chest would come back again. He also kept his eyes closed not knowing what he was going to see if he opened them. He was terrified. One moment he was heavily sleeping and the other a thorny pain in his chest had woken him up only to faint seconds later. Only one face he could remember clearly before he had fainted. The same face that belonged to the person who was holding him in his arms after the party fiasco. Clark's.

Suddenly he felt a warm hand playing with his hair. Soft nails were now touching his forehead and were slightly scratching him. He could recognize the scratch of those nails anytime. Mommy. He opened his eyes and saw her sitting beside him gloomy.

"Hey, baby" she whispered as she was still playing with his hair just above his forehead.

"Hey…" Seeing his mother there made himdare taking his first deep breath, risking to feel again his chest ripping by half. Nothing happened. He looked down .No blood. But then again, he knew that the pain earlier wasn't in his imagination.

The lack of blood on his clothes was understandable. They had changed him but when he put his hand to touch his chest and track the wound that cause him that pain, he didn't find a thing. Not even a sensible scar.

He tried to get up, but his mother gently put him back on the soft pillows. He looked around the white room, finally grinning at seeing the plain decoration. It had nothing to do with how his home looked yet he really liked the place. Only him and his mother were breaking the dazzle white. He looked again at the clothes he was wearing and turned to look at his mother.

"Should I take them off ?" he asked, trembling now to the idea that his mother would yell at him again for those black clothes.

His mother shook her head and whispered "No". Her face was pale and the soft sobs coming from her mouth were shaking her slightly One of her palms was painted red. That palm came and rested on the left side of her chest. It was like she was trying to hold her heart inside her chest. She gave him an half smile and kissed him on his forehead, leaving a small curl to drop on it. That was the moment he could have sworn he had heard faintly his mother's erratic heartbeat.

He didn't know how much time had passed, only that through all of it he had been looking straight into his mother's eyes. It was as if he were trying to read her soul and the truth was, he didn't like what he found: Pain.

"Where are we?" he asked, trying to distract his mother from her thoughts. Actually he had been wanting to ask that question from the moment he woke up, but his mother was never too willing on giving any kind of answers. Every time he had asked something serious for the last few months her face had gone pale. As if she were expecting one of those question to be the one that would bring catastrophic results to their lives. Her life.

"In a special house. Superman's house." Jason noticed that she was bitting her lower lip. That meant that she was anxious about something. _He_ had made her anxious, he knew it.

"No, it's not," he replied calmly. He had been to Superman's house once. Just once, and he was sure that that room didn't belong in his apartment. It was one of the nights before his daddy had left for NY, and despite that, it was one of the best nights out of his house.

"I know that you went through a lot the last few days, but right now it's not time to play, maybe later..." she was talking to him as softly as she could, yet she thought that he was playing. _Grownups..._

"But it's not," he repeated, calmer than the previous time, as he knew quite well that his mother wasn't a tolerant person.

"And where is it then?" she asked him, wanting to end this discussion.

"In Metropolis " he simply said.

She looked at him with a quick glance and a brief smile appeared.

"He woke up?" said a deep voice from the door, to the right.

His daddy was just coming into the room. Behind him, was a very familiar man. He was followed by Superman. He didn't wear his usual suit or his casual clothes. He was wearing the exact same clothes as him. The only thing that changed was the size, nothing else. Jason felt so proud, so unique with those clothes. Still, he was looking at his daddy to be sure that he wouldn't react like the last time.

"So will we be able to leave soon?" his mother asked.

Superman nodded as he took a few steps back to the closer wall. His movements were heavily and there was a slight expression of discomfort on his face. He was trying to smile, sincerely, but something was stopping him from it. Not his mood, something else. If he hadn't known whom he was referring on his thoughts to, he would have said that it was physical pain.

"It won't be as easy as it was with the sea plane, but we have to give it a try. We're ready to go now." Yet he didn't sound so confident. For some reason he was scared. His daddy was always the one that organized everything in their lives. Actually it was clear that sometimes he was pushing it too far for his mother's hotheaded character. They were completely different. They both had the illusion that the other was the safety net in their relationship, what the other truly needed. He might be too young, but he had learned to observe and most of the time his observations came to the right conclusions. Nothing was perfect in his family, and he was afraid that nothing ever was.

His daddy approached the bed, ready to take him into his arms, when suddenly he stopped, hesitating. Jason saw him look at Superman straight in the eyes, as Superman closed his eyes and turned down his head, nodding to do it. Approval. That was strange, but he didn't say anything as usual.

Still in his father's arms, they left the bedroom, passed the aisle and Jason found himself in a huge white room. There, his father's strides widened as he tried to bury the boy's head in his chest. However he had already seen what they were keeping from his sight. There were red spots at two points on the floor. The second was his, he knew that, but the first?

Before he had time to think about it again, about why he didn't have any wounds or why he wasn't hurting anymore, they were out in the cold wind. Everything was cover in snow. He supposed he should be freezing, but surprisingly enough he wasn't. Even so, this time he willingly hid his head into his daddy's shivering chest and drowsily closed his eyes .

He felt he was changing hands, but still he didn't open his eyes. The body that he was holding now made some awkward movements and it was much warmer than his daddy's but still colder than his. After a few minutes he finally opened slightly his eyes and saw Superman's silver shield; he closed them again quickly.

When he was seeing him in his suit, rescuing people, he was a hero, inaccessible, almost unreal. Although, when he was alone with him in the office or even when he was coming in the middle of the night when he thought that he was sleeping, he was just Clark. He liked Clark more. He was as shy as himself and he always observed people. _Like him_. He also wasn't a talkative person. When and if by any miracle, he was chattering with his co-workers during his lunch break, it never lasted for long. He was his Mummy's exact opposite. Yet there were so many things that Jason felt that he had in common with him. A suit doesn't fly, a name doesn't save people. An unsuited Clark had helped him the other day. Too many silly thoughts that were keeping him from the only thing he really wanted: To fall to a peaceful sleep.

He leaned his ear on Superman's chest and let himself listen only to the heart that was beating underneath his head. Even the loud noise that suddenly started didn't't distract him from the heart beating. He felt asleep finally in his arms. Not Superman's, but Clark's. Just before he drifted to sleep, he heard the man that was holding him tight murmur in his ear.

"You really are a precious Healing Lane, my boy"

* * *


	9. Deposed Angel

A/N: A great thanks to my two editors SHADOLibrarian and Misha for their help and patience. You have no idea what they are going through everytime I send them a new chapter...

Metropolis White/Lane house, Sunday, 5:27 a.m.

They were back. After six hours they had finally arrived in Metropolis. Richard had safely brought them home. Scenes, cries, doubtful facts were all still running through her mind. They were painfully marking her, like this howling silence did or like his dried blood on her palm. Every time she was reaching to him, he was hurting. More proof that she couldn't ask for any closeness from him. He was suffering because he had tried it once. She wasn't going to make him go through all those things again.

Superman had asked Richard to drop him at Clark's house as soon as they landed. The helicopter was something that he could take care of later. His powers were still not back yet. He told them that he needed time, a week perhaps, to restore them fully. It didn't take them long to get in Richard's car and leave her standing on the wet lawn with Jason still sleeping in her arms. He didn't say goodnight or pay any attention to his son who was starting to whimper again in his sleep.

How much could a single man take in so little time? He was in pain, she knew that. He was hurt, without powers, oblivious to her feelings, and she was stuck in her house. For almost two hours, she had been trying to find her laptop and write something. Anything!

"Where the hell is it?" she screamed, searching her bedroom for the second time.

"What are you searching for ?" she heard Richard's hoarse voice from the front door. He was back!

"My laptop! I swear I can't remember where I left it this time!"

"Lois, I know that you went through a lot the last few days, and believe me, you don't need your laptop right now."

What did he know anyway? Was he in love with a man and separated from him because of a whole planet? Was he who was singing "I'm in love with an alien" for the last decade? Was he the one who was too small to reach a star?' Just like the stars, damn it, just like the stars. No,Lois' aggressive thoughts didn't need Richard telling her what she needed or didn't need. **SHE NEEDED HER LAPTOP**. If she couldn't have what she really wanted then she wanted her laptop. **AND SHE WANTED IT NOW!**

"I _**need**_ my laptop Richard, search or leave." she shouted at him, ready for a fight. A fight that would distract her more than her AWOL laptop.

"You left it at the office after Jason's asthma attack, Lois," Richard said, excusing himself to the guest room.

And again she had turned to a b. That wasn't smart. But then again she still needed her laptop. She couldn't have him nor could she afford start smoking again. Her salvation today would come through her laptop.

"Richard?" she knock the guest room's door, now his door. "I will go get my laptop from the Planet, can you watch Jason for me?" She hesitated for a second before she added, "Please?"

The door opened to find a smiling Richard in front of her.

"Just go," he said "I'm leaving tomorrow evening anyway."

Lois thanked him quickly. _'He really is a good man' _and she had turned him down. Yet she didn't regret her decision, not once. _'I wasn't what he truly needed. He wasn't what I needed either. I need...'_'

"YOU NEED YOUR FREAKING LAPTOP, LANE!" she yelled as she closed the door behind her.

He heard her yell and then the door shut loudly. He saw her from his bedroom's window walking to her car, tripping once or twice on the lawn, but nothing seemed able to stop her. Except from one thing, as she realized it herself when she reached the car. She had forgotten the car keys. "_Splendid!" _he heard her yelled this time. Actually, she wanted to say something else, he knew that look in her flushed face. Living around a five year-old child had some good influences after all. The door closed again, making an even louder noise, and in the next minutes Lois was driving the car out of the driveway.

Jason miraculously hadn't woken up for more than a few minutes since they had come back to Metropolis. He wasn't likely to wake up for good until morning. Dressed in his pajamas, Richard slowly opened Jason's bedroom door and he was right. The child didn't seem to be waking up any time soon. He stayed there, watching for a bit longer than a simple checking would regularly last. He couldn't believe what had happened the last two days. What had happened to this boy that was now lying peacefully on his bed. Had his future changed after his recognition by his father? Was he going to be a normal child growing up? What was going to happen to him in the next years, and did he really want to know?

It wasn't fear that had pushed Richard away from Jason or his mother. It could never be fear or rejection of his nature. It was understanding. Now more than ever he could understand _him_. The powerful man who all these years had been successfully hiding another self in the corner of his mind while he was rescuing the world. That another self was familiar to him, unexpectedly too familiar. An insecure man, who was noble to the bone. An ideal man that was too freakishly familiar, with no reason to be...

He shook his head and went back to the guest room. Before he finally allowed himself to rest, his thoughts took him back to a conversation that had taken place almost two and a half hours before.

* * *

Lane's car in front of Clark's apartment, Sunday, 3:39 am (3 hours ago.)

They hadn't talked for hours. He had only asked to be dropped at his.. Clark's apartment, nothing else. Sitting in the back seat of the car made easier for Richard to steal a few glances of him through the rearview mirror. He was avoiding Richard's gaze as well as Lois' before. He thought he wasn't ready to face what was hiding there. His eyes fell on Richard's worried face. He knew that he looked awfully pale and most of the time he had his eyes closed trying to stop the dizziness he felt when the car was in motion. During the whole ride, Clark had been feeling his back cool a little but he knew that to lay back on the seat wasn't possible as much as his exhausted body wanted to. Instead, he was sitting on the edge of the seat, griping the right front seat's headrest and trying not to lose his balance when Richard was pushing the brakes.

"We're here." Richard told him, as he was unfastening his seat-belt.

With painfully slow moves he made it to the right door. He was ready to open the car's door when Richard stopped him with only a touch of his sweaty hand. He didn't seem to know why he had done it. His eyes were unreadable. If the eyes are our soul's windows, then the weather in this man's soul wasn't temperate.

"Thank you," Clark said warmly, and tried once more to get out of the car. The door opened soundlessly but his hissing when he stretched his back wasn't .

"You need help, let me help you." Richard said, "I know what happened, I... Lois knows it too." That couldn't be possible. He hadn't seen her or Richard there. He would have heard them if they had, he would... he was powerless. Why was this happening? Why was this happening _now_?

"Lois... how... " Clark's face darkened as well with his vision and he felt his features hardening.

"When she touched you. Don't forget that she is Lois Lane. Just… when I'm back to NY don't shut her out again, you need her. She needs you, Jason too." Tension was building up again in his body, making some of his dry bloody wounds stretch sorely which in turn made him feel more uncomfortable than he already was.

"You don't understand. You can't leave again, I'm not-" Clark desperately tried to explain him that he could never be what he wanted for Lois to have at her side; the kind of father Jason really needed.

"They say that when you want to look for Superman you look _**up,**_" Richard's face was now inches away from his. He could easily feel beads of sweat now and surely some sort of agony was displayed in his eyes.

Clark smiled at those words, yet his eyes never left those of Richard's

" The ones that know him better look on the Daily Planet rooftop, why?"

Clark felt his body stiffen and his eyes widen when Richard, now perfectly calm, was still waiting for an answer. He couldn't lie, yet he didn't want to give the whole truth. A truth that for now he wanted to stay untouched, not only from the world, but most of all from himself.

"I feel relaxed there. Everybody has a favorite spot on this planet, don't they? There I'm calm, with no worries, at least none that someone could easily notice. I feel... different from what I am and what I can do."

The last words came out more like a whisper. Richard nodded to show him that he understood.

"Relaxed.You met her for the first time there, right?" the questions turned more uncomfortable by the second. It was like Richard was sneaking around his memories. He surprised himself with a smile. The first smile after he had seen Jason sleeping in his arms.

"Yes... that day was... a living hell," Clark remembered that day more clearly than ever before._ 'It wasn't so bad actually...' _

"She fell into your arms with no conditions, you are the only one that gets through her walls after all," Richard sighed. And it was true. This man had an effect on her that a few people had. Richard knew that he wasn't one of them. Superman was, Jason definitely and Clark... Well Clark, as he had once heard her say, he was her Hicksville-Kent.

He was now out of the car, but before he closed the door he gave Richard the chance to see him genuinely laughing, for once.

"The truth? First she ignored me, then she laughed at me, and in the end she verbally attacked me," he said, giving him a grin, a very familiar goofy grin. Watching Richard's shocked expression, his face got serious to add a simple truth.

"She **is** Lois Lane," he winked at him and closed the car's door. Richard stayed there, staring at the black clad figure disappearing inside the building's door. There were so many things that Richard didn't know about him, then again so many that he had discovered in less than two days.

* * *

The front door was always open. Clark made a mental note to thank the old lady from the second floor for that some day. He didn't know why, but from the moment he entered the building he felt worse. Tired, sleepy, crumbled. Worse. A sudden, irritating sound alerted him that the elevator was finally in front of him to take him to the third floor. A little red light lit for a second as he opened the elevator's door. The light inside this _box_ gave him an sense of his reality for the last eight months. Not really wanting to, he looked at his reflection in the mirror. His face was pale. Black holes led to his sunken blue eyes. Small veins branched red on his white eyeballs, but that wasn't what he saw there.

He saw things that he had never seen, even behind those thick glasses of his. Remembering Richard's words, only minutes ago, he felt his body stiffen again, and then with no obvious reason, his left arm jerked. He pushed his thoughts away for the time being and the feeling of loneliness filled him again. It filled his eyes too, with guilt, pain - he couldn't look at his own eyes anymore. They had so much to say and it just wasn't the time to deal with what he had to admit for more than a thousand times over. He was a liar. He was a coward. He was a a man in love.

Those thoughts bent him once again, only this time he was also to reaching for the spare key under the rough rag in front of his apartment's front door. The door gave a noise of protest but it opened without any effort. The same couldn't be said about his body: it screamed with the seemingly effortless move, halting him for a second. He dragged his feet on the apartment floor. The dim light from the road's light in the living room was surprisingly enough to lead him to the kitchen.

He switched the lights on. His eyes hurt. Still, he couldn't get used to all those new senses that the lack of his powers were giving him. Somehow, deep down, he enjoyed them. He could now feel the chill when the fridge's door opened. The sensation of the chill and the effect that had on his arm's hair was something pleasant. The unpleasant part came when he felt the wound on his left arm open again. That wasn't good.

The milk had expired two days ago._ 'Who cares!' _He lifted the milk carton to his mouth and swallowed awkwardly two times before the rest of it dripped to his jaw and finally to the blood covered shirt. Feeling too lazy to take a towel, he dried it with his hand and sleeve to discover that he needed to shave. He was curious to give it a try. Feel clean again.

In the bathroom there was a gift he kept just for sentimental reasons. It was given to him as a Christmas present from Perry almost five months ago. He had laughed when he had seen the shaving kit which his boss had given him. Who knew then? Now he needed a hot bath and a shave, yet he couldn't face himself to the bathroom mirror. At least not while the steam from the bath's hot water had obscured the small shaving mirror. His last excuse was the water which filled the bathtub, so first came the bath. The shave could wait a bit longer.

He had started sweating when he decided to take off his clothes. The heat was unbearable but still welcome. Trying to take off his shirt he came face to face with a new problem. The dry blood had attached to the shirt's fiber. Back in the kitchen he took a sharp knife and headed back in the bathroom. It was the only way to free himself from this clothes.

With unsteady hands he started to cut the fabric.He scratched his skin more than once, yet he wanted so much to get out of those sweaty, bloody, stinky clothes that he didn't care. The cuts were just a small price to pay. Knowing that he couldn't just rip the fabric from his sensitive wounded back , he entered in the hot water with the torn cloth falling like the burned black wings of a deposed angel.

The feeling of the hot water was so different on his vulnerable skin. It covered him with a pleasant sense of care and cleanness. The cuts from the kitchen's knife stung while he sank his upper body, and it was then when he felt his back burning from the expected soothing water. He held back the tears which were now threatening to flow from his painfully closed eyelids. He opened them when he heard something crack under his left arm's tensed palm.

His strength was back! The bathtub was slightly broken at the edge but that still didn't mean anything, he cautioned himself. When he tried again to break something, anything, nothing happened. The bath was not so appealing anymore. Besides the blood from his right arm was now coloring the water anyway. It was time to try the shaving thing.

The first movements were awkward. For the first time he knew the fear of getting hurt and it was perfectly understandable for him now! It took him more time than he had first thought. Sometime, during the shaving he felt the clothes detached from his back and fell on the floor. He grimaced from the sound of the soaked cloths dropping but didn't look down.

He felt clean. For the first time in his life he marveled at what was like to scrub your skin until you feel clean at last. His eyes returned to his face. Nothing seemed to have really changed how he looked. His hair was wet but that was it. He turned to see what his back looked like now. A second was enough.

Wearing only a towel he fell on his bed burying his face in his shaking palms. Soon the blue spotted towel fell on the floor. '_How the hell did we wind up like this?' _The sounds from the street outside his window faded only to come back louder, more disturbing, like a cruel joke.

His ceiling had two plastic stars. One white and one red. '_One gave me life, the other is keeping me alive. I wonder for how long. What keeps me alive also forces me to be different. Makes me able to keep alive others. Kills me slowly. For how long ? Until I crack? Too late. Yet I'm still alive!'_

This room wasn't what he would call home. The farm had stopped being called "home" a long time ago. It just was a place with memories. Memories that never got old. Since he had found out that "family" wasn't only his mother anymore, he had desperately wanted to drift off to sleep for once, feeling safe and welcome. Even if that would only happen in an imaginary place and time. He wanted to go home, but he knew that home was now too far to reach. Reach her. Reach... them.

He looked outside his bedroom's window and it was then that something came into view. Something that made his heart and body relax, feel warm, maybe even happy because of the memories that it carried. An hour had passed since he had come back to his apartment, but days since he had left to the place where he kept a small amount of the essence of what we all call home. A place where he felt safe and everybody considered him just _Clark_.

Smiling with his thoughts, he opened his closet...

TBC


	10. Hold On Me

**A/N: This is the last chapter. It was written 13 months ago, edited 5-6 times some parts were rewritten over and over again.**

So be kind, I mean it took me over a year to post it!

Oh and something else, this chapter it will better be read listening to this: /watch?vj4y-RzVGrHg

Metropolis, Daily Planet, Sunday, 6:37am

_11 floor…_

15 floor…

23 floor…

26 floor…

Ding…

She had to remember where she had left her laptop._ 'Two possibilities,' _she thought. _'My desk or Clark's office.'_

**_This time, this place Misused, Mistakes._**

_'What was that?'_ Music. And it was coming from Clark's office. _'He was there at this hour, on Sunday?.'_

**_Too long, too late._**

_'Since when Clark listens to this kind of music? He was a farm boy, country music seemed to suit him better. What is he doing here anyway?'_

_**Who was I to make you wait.**_

She turned the hinge of Clark's office and there he was.

**_Just one chance. Just one breath._**

He was lying on his sofa with his glasses clenched in his left hand while his face was covered with a pillow. The sofa was vast for such a small office. She had tried to convince Clark to get something that would be more easily fit into the small space of his _new office yet, it was one of the few times he didn't listen to her. 'First he turned down contacts and then the sofa. **God**, he was hopeless.'_ Anyway, how could he be comfortable lying there?

**_Just in case there's just one left._**

How a man of his height could be comfortable on that thing, she sure wasn't. She had to wake him before he woke up the next day with a really bad backache.

**_'Cause you know, you know, you know._**

"Clark? Clark, wake-up..." she whispered softly close to his ear like she did every morning with her son. Clark drowsily removed the pillow from his face. Still, he didn't turn to look at her.

**_That I love you. I have loved you all along._**

"It's everything, okay?" she whispered again knowing how much Clark hated loud noises when he was engrossed to something. Now he was slowly starting to wake up she saw the forming grimace of annoyance. Maybe she shouldn't have awoken him after all.

_**And I miss you. Been far away for far too long.**_

She touched his left arm and he froze in place. With slow, cautious moves, he put on his glasses and turned to meet her worried eyes.

**_I keep dreaming you'll be with me  
and you'll never go._**

****  
His face were different. He looked at her like he wasn't able to see her clearly through those thick frames. Like something, in the uneasy air between them, was blurring his vision.

**_Stop breathing, if I don't see you any more._**

His eyes were a blaze of light blue that made her shiver. She had never noticed Clark's eyes from so close.

_**On my knees, I'll ask Last chance for one last dance.**_

He pushed her gently aside and made a move to get up yet he froze again. His features showed then what she could take as an expression of pain.

_**Cause with you, I'd withstand. All of hell to hold your hand.**_

Slowly with cautious moves, he got up from the sofa and looked at her constantly blinking.

**_I'd give it all. I'd to give for us._**

"Your glasses are dirty, let me" and before he could try to stop her, she had his glasses in her hands.

An incomprehensible word came out as a whimper. His lips were forming half-formed words in silence. She could only hear the song's lyrics till Clark finally reclaim his glasses. He stretched his hand to take them from hers. It only needed another, more intense, whimper to get her attention again.

_**Give anything but I won't give up. 'Cuse you know, you know, you know.**_

His hand had frozen in the mid air. Then without a word he gently took his glasses back and put them on again.

**_That I love you. I have loved you all along._**

"Clark give them to me. You are acting weird, you know that?" she grabbed furiously his hand and he let out a painful growl. He was now trying to hide his hand as deep as he could in his chest.

_**And I miss you. Been far away for far too long.**_

"Clark what happened? Did I hurt you?" she asked putting her hand on his shoulder. She felt his breathing stop and the tenseness starting to rise under his shirt. Suddenly the shirt started to stain under her palm while vermilion spots were creeping from the white fabric .

_**I keep dreaming you'll be with me and you'll never go.**_

_'No it can't be' _she thought. "Look at me" she gasped but he didn't turned to face her. **" CLARK, LOOK AT ME!" **she yelled.  
_**  
Stop breathing, if i don't see you any more.**_

He turned, still holding his left hand on his chest but he avoided an eye contact with her sparkling eyes. "What happened to you?" she whispered again as the air couldn't get out of her lungs. "Please... The truth. For once that bloody truth!"

_**So far away . Been far away for far too long.**_

"I got hurt" he answered simply as he was still looking down to the floor nervously.

_**So far away . Been far away for far too long.**_

"Look at me Clark" she wanted to see his eyes. She knew that whatever he was hiding, the answer was in his eyes.

_**But you know, you know, you know.**_

A sigh came out of his throat and at last his eyes met hers. They were hiding pain and guilt. So much pain mixed with desperation, exhaustion and love, most of all love. "Your glasses…"

_**I wanted. I wanted you to stay.**_

She removed his glasses and he didn't even try to stop her. She gasped again. "No, it can't be…"

_**'Cause I needed I need to hear you say.**_

"What if I tell you that it can be?" He asked her softly, like when she was trying to wake him.

_**That I love you**_

"Stupid." She felt tears glittering her eyes. 'So. Stupid.' Her lips trembling... _' Oh, no I won't!'_

_**: SLAP :**_

"That hurt!" he hissed still shocked as he saw her both hands lift in the air for seconds before they came to settle on her hips.

"I know! That is called perfect timing, don't you think?" she shouted him with eyes now sparkling not from upcoming tears but from steadily rising anger.

_**  
I have loved you all along**_

"As far as I remember I was the one with the perfect timing here. I made a lot of mistakes but in every kidnapping, rooftop fall, accident, dangerous story hunt or I don't know what other situation you were trapped in, I was always there for you." He wasn't yelling but his strict tone was so much different than what she was used to from his Clark persona.

"Timing? What the hell you know about timing? You leave for 5 years without saying a word. You leave me with a child that the truth is that I cannot handle by myself and then one day you show up from nowhere with a _'you are okay?'_ Guess what, I'm not OKAY!" She didn't want to cry again. Lois Lane didn't cry for a man's stupidity! At least not in front of him.

_**And I forgive you**_

"Lois we have talked about this before. I'm sorry I can't change what I've done and-"

"I'm not asking you to change anything. I don't regret anything, that's called life! Life is to accept what happens without the Ifs and learn to move on." She looked him in the eyes and felt a chill wash over her at the vivid pain that his pair of glasses had hidden so well all this time. She took a deep breath before she continued and tried to lock his eyes to hers. She need an eye contact for what she was about to say.

"I'm asking you why in almost 9 years you didn't tell me about that flying in tights fetish of yours..."

**_For being away for far too long_**

"For 9 years you were always around. You were my super dorky lover friend. Smiling, frowning, listening, advising, geek and superhero. I let you both come so close and for what?" Her face might have been pale but her ears were starting to crimson dangerously.

"Because we care - I mean I care! Much more than you have ever imagined, feared, or dreamt, Lois." Clark muttered.

_**So Keep Breathing,**_

"Why afraid?" she asked not realising the hint of confusion in her voice.

He obviously had hit a nerve there. Fear was not in Lois Lane's vocabulary. It was a ruptured vocabulary, truth to be told, with her favourite target: the spelling.

"For the last decade I imagine myself be loved by you for who I really am. For the last 8 months I dream a life that will never be mine. For the last 72 hours I'm afraid that I know which my choice will be when I'll between you and the world. And it would be the wrong one," Clark added with a sad smile.

**_Cause I'm not leaving you any more_**

"I will save the world and it will be the very last time. After that neither Superman nor Clark Kent will survive your loss." It was that simple. A world without Lois Lane would be a world where he wouldn't belong to any more.

_**Believe and,**_

"Nobody dies from a broken heart nowadays Clark." she sigh. _'Grow up Clark somebody has to grow up after all and it will not be me this time.'_

"But all would die if there is not air left for them to breathe Lois." His breathing was now hitched which matched perfectly her own sharp inhales.

**_Hold on to me and never let me go_**

"This conversation doesn't seem to get us anywhere. Now what? Where does all this leave us?" _'Good one Lane!'_

"Well, we have to consider 6 billions people, a newspaper with a really hot-tempered boss, our six year-old son yet the challenging part is _'us'_ " this last word came out so difficult from his dry lips. Even the sound of it was strange but so heart warming.

"Us? After all you been through the last days, you still think that there is an 'us'? Your own father demolished almost your half back in front of Richard's eyes!" _'Oh me and my big mouth-'_

"What?" he blurted.

_**Keep Breathing**_

"Do you really want us to play around that like fools when we have more serious things to clear up?" Lois tossed him a satisfied smirk watching him fight himself from blurting anything that would leave him one more a point behind her.

**_'Cause I'm not leaving you any more_**

"I'm not going to pretend that I'm okay with it Lois. As for my father... my biological one didn't have anything to do with what Richard had the misfortune to witness. I was the one who was holding the whip the entire time." his voice was now solemnly low.

_**Believe and,**_

She reached out to him and soothed a bright red cheek, making him look at her. In his fearful, loving eyes she felt her five year building dam break under the intensity of those two blue torrents.

"Will it do us now any good if I ask why?"

_**Hold on me and never let me go.**_

He just shook his head and let out a hitched breath which didn't know he had been holding. It contained relief but had also a hint of a tortured man's last breath . The pain was now easing and he felt the world stop moving for a whole second!

"Then let me tell you something, Hicksville. The six billion people want their hero smiling, our yodel machine editor will be happy as long as his front page is ready by 8 every day and our six-year old son needs you."

A faint smile appeared again to light his thoughtful expression. Yet she had one more thing to say. A wish more like it.

"As for me? I want someone to hold me when I get nominated for my next Pulitzer. When that day comes I want to laugh. I want to feel loved to the core of my being and float to the mid air from happiness... literally" she added with a wink.

_**Keep Breathing.**_

Clark sat on the sofa trying not to laugh and Lois sat next to him, then superfluous she noticed his bloody shirt again.

"You have to change your shirt you know."

He smiled at her and took one clean shirt from the first drawer of his desk. "You have no idea how many of those," pointing the bloody shirt that he was still wearing "have been found ripped in the elevators by the janitor." Lois laughed with him as he started shyly to unbutton his shirt.

_**Hold on me and never let me go.**_

He didn't want her to see the wounds on his back, yet she came near and turned him slowly to see what they had done to him. All his back was like a ploughed field. The wounds were deep and some of them, after all those hours, were still bleeding, under the bandages. She took the stained shirt and dried the wounds with soft moves, but still he was hurting every time she touched him.

**_Keep Breathing. _**

"You need rest, in a few days I am sure there won't be even one scar to remind you of the pain."

He took her hand and he laid her on his chest gently, while he was lying carefully on the sofa. They were going to rest together. She knew how much he needed her now, just like she needed him for so long.

**_Hold on me and never let me go._**

In every move she made to make herself comfortable, she heard him groan as she was squeezing his open wounds on the back of the sofa. "That hurt?" she asked and anxiously looked in his eyes.

He groaned again by her move. In his eyes the love was now more than pain. "Nah, not any more" he said and she lay again on his chest. She felt his breath stop again from the pain that her last movement had caused. They kept hearing each other's breathing as they finally fell asleep.

_'Keep Breathing'  
'Hold on me and never let me go...'_ **The End**

Nickelback - Far Away


	11. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

Metropolis, Daily Planet, Sunday, 7:54

His job never stopped here, in _The Daily Planet_. If anything bothered him about weekends it was not having Monday's issue at least two days earlier - if there was no breaking news to add to of course. Olsen had done it again! As much as he loved the kid he now wanted to strangle him with his bare hands. He had forgotten to send the front page picture for the Monday's issue, to the printing office.

He quickly went to Jimmy's office and started looking for the picture when he noticed a light coming from the half-open door of Clark's office. When he finally found, the picture under a tower of papers and notes, his curiosity won out.

He opened silently opened the door and saw something that he had considered impossible until now. Clark Kent was sleeping on his office sofa and Lane, Lois Lane, was lying on his almost shirtless chest, sleeping as well. He quickly scanned Clark's computer screen and was pleasantly surprised to see the finished article he had asked to be ready for printing on Monday. Kent was a great writer and he was doing a pretty damn good job as an editor assistant, although his time was limited.

He switched off the computer and pushed the play button on the CD-player. Right before he turned off the lights he saw Clark's eyes open slightly. Perry smiled and closed the door behind him.  
He was waiting for the elevator when he finally called Richard.

"Yes?" he heard his nephew's sleepy voice answer the phone

"Mornin', my boy I am sorry I am calling you so early, but I had to inform you about something," he said with the tone he used when they were in trouble in the paper.

"What is it, Uncle Perry?" He sounded worried, but Perry didn't speak right away, "Is everything all right? Do you want to come over?"

"Sort of. You see, we received an anonymous call, and I sent Lois to check it. It's going to be a great story probably a Kerth winner or even Pulitzer worthy," he said as more excitedly.

"Oh, that's great! It's not anything dangerous, right?" Richard asked him, knowing what his uncle would do to have a great story printed.

"I can't make any promises but I think that she will be just fine. She will probably get back home late tonight so bring Jason over when it's time to leave and I will let her know."

"Thanks uncle I will see you later. Good morning." and Richard yawning hung up the phone.

_'As much, as I love you my boy,'_ he thought, _'sometimes destiny, needs a hand to lead some people to happiness, I just gave one to the ones who needed it for years now,'_ and smiling, played with the Superman's picture that he had held all that time.

The elevator's doors opened and he walked in. Perry looked back to Kent's office and thought of the note he had left him on his desk about where a certain boy would spend his day today. He was a great man, a great reporter and... As the doors were closing Perry looked again at Jimmy's picture and smiled. If Jimmy had captured this picture anything was possible on this planet. Even a happy ending, after eight years, from the first time when a boy with a fake pair of glasses and a red cape made a world to hope and Lois Lane's heart fly. **The End... Again.****AN: That was it, the end of the ride... ****Two oneshot prequels are coming as well with two or three oneshot sequels... ****Aurea Mediocritas©2007-2008**


End file.
